Herbalists to face strict regulations

Strict regulations are to be imposed on herbalists and acupuncturists amid growing concerns about the safety of their treatments.

Patients have suffered liver and kidney problems after being treated with herbal medicines and at least one person has died.

With one in three people having used complementary medicines, a government report says there is an urgent need to protect the public.

It recommends that anyone offering the treatments should be required to register with a regulator, who will require new practitioners to take a degree in their subject. Those who fail to keep the regulator's code could be struck off, while those operating without a licence would be prosecuted.

The authors of the Department of Health report, seen by The Sunday Telegraph, said measures were required to stamp out poor practice among herbalists who did not understand the risks of the potent substances they were dealing with nor recognise symptoms that required urgent medical attention.

Patients have been harmed when given preparations that had been wrongly labelled, contaminated, cut with toxic substances such as lead, mercury and arsenic, and when these preparations have interfered with conventional medicine.

Related Articles

There are about 2,000 herbalists working in Britain, but there is limited scientific evidence to support many of their claims. The complementary medicines market is worth £200 million a year.

Under the proposals, new practitioners would have to study for an honours degree in herbal medicine or acupuncture. Existing practitioners without qualifications would have two years to submit applications demonstrating their experience and knowledge. All would be required to pass tests in English.

The Government has already promised to regulate the field, and will now consider the report.

Prof Michael Pittilo, chairman of the steering group that wrote the report, said it was "desperately important" that ministers acted with speed. "We have to protect public health and enable people who want to access herbal medicine to do so safely," he said.

Prof Pittilo, vice-chancellor of Robert Gordon University, in Aberdeen, dismissed arguments that the field should be left unregulated because regulation would appear to endorse "quack" medicine.

Last August, a 25-year-old PhD student in Newcastle upon Tyne died after using Chinese herbal medicine in an attempt to treat an upset stomach. Ling Wang fell into a coma, and her organs shut down before she could tell doctors the type of remedy she had been given, but pathologists suspected a painkiller called jin bu huan.

While most acupuncture causes little harm, there is a risk of accidental puncture of nerves, which could lead to brain damage or strokes. Kidney damage can result from deep needling in the lower back, and unsterilised needles can transfer HIV and hepatitis.

Many alternative medicines will remain unregulated, subject only to voluntary codes of practice. Therapists who practise in such diverse disciplines as reflexology, shiatsu, homeopathy and aromatherapy are left to choose whether to register with the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council.

Ministers have promised tougher action on herbal medicines and acupuncture because the practices carry much greater risks.

But Prof David Colquhoun, a pharmacologist at University College London, criticised the plans for regulation. "This will endanger lives, not protect them, because it acts as an endorsement for medicines that in many cases don't work, and in others are very dangerous," he said.

Prof Colquhoun described as "the height of absurdity" the proposal that new practitioners attend university courses in herbalism and acupuncture. "In terms of whether it works, herbalism is not quite as bad as homeopathy, but it is not far off," he said. "As for acupuncture, it is nothing more than a theatrical placebo."